Trust me! This is the only way out

A bright light shines beneath us. Is this the moment when we hit the ground and everything is over?

Lionel, Knox, and I try to hold ourselves on the walls with our weapons. By hitting them into the wall, we can prevent ourselves from falling. 

As Caspian is not able to hold himself on the wall, Lionel catches him. 

"That was close!" Caspian says nervously. 

We really have too many close death scenarios today. We can't hang down here forever. Seriously, my arms will break if I have to hang here much longer.

"I can see the ground!" Sisli shouts. Her voice echoes through the shaft.

"Caspian, give Knox the rope from your bag!" shouts Lionel.

"My rope? Why do you need it?" Caspian asks, irritated.

"We don't have time to talk! Just give him the rope!"

"I am trying!" Caspian says and grabs into his bag while trying to not fall down.

"Here," he says and throws the rope to Knox, who catches it.

"And now? I can't hold myself any longer!" Caspian says.

"Knox, bind the rope on your axe. Then we climb down on the rope!"

Good idea. The axe should be stable enough to hold us.

"Ok. Ready." Knox says and starts to climb down with Sisli. Then we follow them one after another.

Approximately one meter away from the ground, the rope ends. I jump down the last step.

"And how do you get your axe back?" I ask, thinking.

"Easy!" Knox says. 

He pulls with a lot of strength on the rope, and his axe falls down.

Shocked, we jump to the side, as we are afraid to get hit by it. But Knox doesn't move a bit and just catches his axe with his right hand.

Knox really has balls of steel to be so confident to catch the axe.

"So where are we?" Sisli asks and looks around.

"It is too dark to see anything!" I say.

"I think here is a torch," Lionel says and lights it up.

The flame quickly spreads to other torches until the entire room is illuminated. Around us are masses of undead, surrounded by a dark blue aura.

"Can you turn the light off again? I liked it more before," Caspian says nervously.

But there would be no use; then the undead instantly attack us. Lionel and Knox grab their weapons and also attack. However, these undead are different from those in the dungeon. If defeated, they crumble to dust. So, there's no necromancer here to resurrect them.

Caspian shoots his arrows. But he can't build up distance because we are surrounded. So he has to shoot at the enemies from close range. 

Sisli tries to use her plants to push the enemies backwards to give us some breathing room. Once again, I only have my dagger to defend myself with, while the undead fight with swords.

I look around. Where is the exit to the next level here? There are so many enemies; I don't know where to look.

"Ah!" Caspian shouts as he is hit in the arm by an undead.

"Sisli, can you grab Caspian and climb with a vine a bit higher to search for the exit?" I shout.

"Of course!" she shouts and does as I say.

Hurt but more or less safe Caspian can also shoot his arrows better from above.

"There!" Sisli shouts and points with her finger to some kind of portal between two pillars.

"Let's try to get over there!" Lionel shouts.

One undead who lies on the ground grabs my foot, but fortunately Knox comes and hits the enemy to ashes. Sisli and Caspian are already next to the portal.

Fortunately Caspian provides us with cover as we try to fight our way through the crowds to them. And that despite his injured arm. He's not such a crybaby like I thought.

However, I can hardly call it fighting in my case, as my workout currently consists more of evading and running. Our goal is to avoid injuries and conserve energy. But that is not entirely possible with that many enemies.

Lionel gathers his strength and rams his now golden-glowing sword into the ground. A brightly glowing shockwave engulfs a multitude of skeletons, which crumble to ash in the light of the shockwave.

"Knox, come on!" I shout while he gets a little too involved in the fight.

"I will be ready soon!" Knox shouts.

But Lionel grabs the fighting Knox on the arm and runs to us. Without knowing what will wait this time on the other side of this barrier, we all enter the barrier as soon as Lionel and Knox have reached us.

Now we find ourselves in some kind of big stairwell, which rotates upwards. Above us, sunlight seems to shine from a dome.

"So we just have to follow the stairs up?" Sisli asks, irritated.

That seems a little too easy. But we have to try, I guess. But first I should heal Caspian and the others.

"You did a good job!" I say to Caspian. By touching his arm, the deep cut disappears, glowing.

"A compliment from you? I will never forget this moment!" Caspian says dramatic.

"Don't overdo it, otherwise you'll get a new injury!" I say and heal the wounds of the others.

I shouldn't use my healing powers all the time. But the tower of the mage is too dangerous to continue injured. At the moment my mana regenerates well, but when they get hurt too much in the next levels, it can get a bit critical later on.

Then we follow the stone stairs. But we don't seem to get any further. Next to us on the stairs lies a human skeleton. Oh, this must be the last visitor of this level.

We walk and walk up the stairs, but we are not getting nearer to the end. Nothing is as it seems. But how can we get out of here?

"Something is wrong with these stairs. It is like we are not moving further at all!" Lionel says seriously and stops walking.

"You are right. We have already passed this creepy skeleton five times or more!" Sisli says.

"That is an important realization." I say thoughtfully.

"Really?"

"That means somewhere after this point is something that loops back down the stairs!" Lionel says attentive.

"Yes, that might be the case. So there must be another exit. Something more or less obvious." I say thoughtfully.

Sadly, I can't remember how they solved this in the novel. Why did I skim over the end like that?

"If I wanted to solve puzzles, I would have stayed with the puzzle group of my grandma." Caspian says, while he looks around nervously.

"Stop joking! We should look for something special or unusual!" Lionel says.

And there is something unusual. The sunbeams from the dome above us move slowly. And they all seem to move to the same location. I look down the stairs. It seems like they all will meet at the bottom of the floor under us. But how do we reach the floor when we can't go down?

Then everything starts to shake. A flying silhouette appears in the middle of the room. It is the mage of the north! Everyone grabs their weapons.

"You are truly more stubborn than you look!" says the shadow-like projection of the mage.

"Surrender and set the princess free or bear the consequences!" Lionel shouts.

"A nice suggestion, but I need the princess, at least not for long anymore." The mage says, grinning.

"Don't you dare harm a hair on her!"

"The royal bloodline has to pay for their sins. So I think there will not be much left to harm when I am finished!"

Lionel jumps to the mage, splits the appearance with a quick blow, and lands on the opposite steps. But since it is only kind of a shadow projection, it only splits and joins itself again.

"Nice try, but let's make this a little more exciting," the mage says.

Now a black mist rises from the floor beneath the stairwell. Soldiers consisting of swirling shadows and armed with massive black blades rise up from the ground.

"See you later!" the mage says, looking at me.

Crap, the time is running away. The soldiers start to run up the stairs. We have nowhere to go, so we have to fight them here and now. Caspian starts to shoot arrows at the soldiers. They disintegrate but then form again.

"I can only slow them down but not destroy them!" Caspian shouts.

"Keep it up!" Lionel shouts while he and Knox run down some stairs and attack the enemies.

We are quite high, so in the fight some enemies are thrown downwards and hit the ground.

"What should we do?" Sisli shouts while she searches with me for the exit.

"When there is no way up, then there is only the way down left!" I say, thinking.

"Down? When you walk down the stairs, you will be killed by the soldiers. And when we jump down from here, we will hit the ground and die!" Sisli shouts.

"What if not?" I say.

Then I suddenly remember that in the novel they jumped down somewhere and survived. Was it maybe in this level?

I look down. The moving sunbeams from the dome now begin to meet at the middle of the ground ornaments, and the ground begins to shimmer slightly.

"We have to jump. The portal is in the middle of the ground. But it only seems to stay open for a short time!" I shout.

"What?" Sisli asks a little anxiously.

"There is no other way! This is our best option!"

"Lionel, Knox, Caspian, Sisli. When I give the command, we all have to jump down to the ground.

"What? This will be our save death!" Caspian shouts, shocked.

"Trust me! This is the only way out!"

"I trust you!" Lionel shouts.

I trust you too!" Knox shouts.

"Me too!" Sisli says.

"I don't really have a choice, but I trust you too!" Caspian shouts.

After a few seconds, the shimmer on the floor becomes stronger, and something seems to appear.

"Ok. Jump now!" I shout.

Then everyone jumps down the stairs, and we approach the ground rapidly.